시장 경제의 발달과 언어관의 대립: 『베니스의 상인』의 경우

The Rise of the Market Economy and Linguistic Conflict in The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice represents the shift from fiscal feudalism to the market economy in terms of the conflict and compromise between linguistic realism and linguistic nominalism. Shylock, in spite of his professional usury, believes in use-value and the ideal identification of signifier with signified, though his verbal essentialism is constantly distorted and parodied by his Christian interlocutors. Though he lives in the midst of the capitalist Venice, Shylock’s antipathy against social and monetary mobility is reflected in his “diabolical literalism.” Launcelot Gobbo’s move from Shylock to the new master Bassanio means in the play a metaphorical displacement from letter to spirit in the Pauline sense. The Moorish prince of Morocco and the prince of Arragon are the kindred brothers of Shylock in the sense that they all trust in intrinsic worth and credit the essential and organic interdependence of appearance and reality, and sign and reference. Bassanio acknowledges the separation of signifier from signified and recognizes the apparent truth that these cunning times of commodity society assumes. His fortune in the casket choice is the success in his hermeneutics of sign-reading. Shakespeare foregrounds the possible compromise of literalism with metaphorical tropism in the ring episode. As the market economy needs both use value and exchange value of a commodity, the verbal communication wants literal meanings as well as metaphorical extensions and turnings. KCI Citation Count: 0